June 23, 2017
Clara Baker with special guest Auralai
7-10pm
$10 suggested donation
Clara Baker, originally from Portland, OR, grew up around music. She sang harmonies with her mom in church, learned fiddle from her dad, and spent summers jamming at bluegrass festivals and fiddle contests. It wasn’t until she turned 18 though, that Clara really found her own voice and passion for music.
Listening to her parents’ old Emmylou Harris, Joni Mitchell and Dixie Chicks albums inspired Clara to save up enough money to buy a beautiful Martin guitar to accompany her singing.
Since then, Clara has spent the past seven years learning licks and writing songs while performing and touring in Oregon, Wisconsin, Illinois, Kansas, California and the Northeastern US. Her debut album, Temporary Things, was successfully funded on Kickstarter and came out in June 2015 to critical acclaim. Her album has received widespread radio play in the US and internationally, and charted as top-played for two months in a row on national folk DJ charts.
Temporary Things tells a story– a progression of love, loss, connection, self-discovery and reflection. The songs also relate a young woman’s musical genesis that began with picking up a fiddle and making the rounds of competitive fiddle contests, to family jam sessions, choir performances, classical voice lessons and eventual transition to guitar and finding her own voice as an accomplished singer-songwriter.
Clara lives in Corvallis, OR teaching and performing locally, and touring nationally. At just 25, her collaborations with veteran songwriters and performers in the acoustic/americana scene are impressive. She’s shared the stage with Chicago bluegrass outfit Henhouse Prowlers, Americana flatpicker Eric Lambert, and renowned singer-songwriters Matt The Electrician, and McDougall.
On stage Clara is charismatic, sincere and at ease while performing, and clearly finds great joy in sharing her music. Her honest, poetic, heartfelt observations draw you close and reveal a reflective young burgeoning artist exploring her personal journey along the way. And as No Depression matter-of-factly states, “Clara Baker’s journey will be one worth watching.”
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With Stephanie Tschech providing a foundation of cello and voice, complemented by multi-instrumentalist Nate Lehner, Auralai combines the best of classical beauty with pop-esque rhythm and melody. Stephanie’s abstract but vivid lyrics and complex yet catchy rhythm and melodies make for an etherial mood, sometimes haunting, sometimes hilarious, always fiercely engaging. No slave to both conventional songwriting and classical cello form, Auralai brings a much needed fresh breed of indie-pop music that is nothing short of captivating.